Below are Jack’s recollections in his own voice:
The first time I came to (Pawtuckaway) Lake to visit the grandparents I was still in diapers (1935-1936). When I was very young I would spend the summers there with my grandparents, the (Peter) Meindls. My grandmother and I would pick blueberries where the State Park is now.
Over the years I put in hundreds of hours with a pick and shovel improving Meindl Road in from the Mountain Road. We had good times with Hans,
Brustle and Edgar Sachs and their families and the others on that side of the lake. Hans and Peter liked to work outdoors together building things for their camps. They often did it in their birthday suits. This was a kind of health culture among the Germans.
Each spring I would put my outboard motorboat in the lake and run around in it. Mr. Elwell – he was over on the “big lake” (Walcott Elwell, of Seaman’s Point) – the boat warden then – would chase and stop me and sell me a plate on the spot. (Ed: This must have been some kind of license plate for a boat. Also, references to the “big” and “little” lake in these reminiscences are to the two ponds that were later joined to become Pawtuckaway Lake.)
Peter was an excellent wood carver. One time I was fishing downstream from the dam when they opened it. Heard a roar and saw a wall of water coming at me. Just made it to safety. I had to go all the way down to 156, cross over and come up the other side. The Gylphes’ son Carl was with me.
When the lake was drawn down in late summer, I would catch fish after fish in the little water that was left for dinners with the grandparents. (Ed: The NH Electric Company took water from the lake to generate power until 1950). The seagulls would come from Portsmouth to fish also. Where the (South) channel goes from the little lake to the big lake there was a stone wall across that you could walk on when the lake was draining.
I remember a small house on the end of (Dolloff) dam that had a sign on it that said: “Protected by gas bomb thief trap”. Never saw any signs of anyone living in it. That was in the late 40’s. (There was also a) hermit who lived across from the dam and lived off fish. The whole shoreline was fish bones and fish guts. Also, one day Grandpa Peter took his rowboat to the dam to read the water level. The lake was draining and he went over with the flow. And I remember the Moore kid who built a propeller driven air boat with a VW engine and raced it up and down the lake endlessly.
When the fire tower was manned, Gardener Bemis would sit up there. I would drive to the end of the road and walk up with cold six pack of beer. He would drink only 5 of the 6 because he was “on duty”.
Then there was Attorney George Grinnell out of Derry who flew in with his Piper Cub. He would drop into the lake and take me for rides in his Cub on floats. Only crashed there once on the ice, (when) he hit the wires across where (Dolloff) dam is and landed upside down on the ice. That’s why the markers are on the wire. One time he ran out of gas on landing and I had to tow him in with a boat and gas him up from Peter Meindl’s truck tank.
The things that I wish I had pictures of were of the things that Edgar (Sachs) built: The stone and railroad track boat ramp to haul his boats in and out. The big stone dam behind the house and the stone swimming pool next to the house. Edgar was in the mink biz for a while. He had them in pens. He would take me to Portsmouth to buy fish to feed the minks. He would shovel them into the trunk of an old Pontiac. On the way back, I would have to ride with my head out the window because of the stench. A hurricane ended the mink biz.
I was fortunate to end up with a lot next to what is now the Lyles. I started building (my) lake house in the early ‘60s. Raising three sons and short on cash, I built my house on the lot out-of-pocket which took me 15 years to complete. I had to sell it in 2016 and I sure do miss the lake.
Peter Meindl, my grandma’s second husband, built the house where the Lyles now live. A long time later my grandma passed away and Peter ended up marrying a woman named Billy, who was from NYC. She was liked by no one and resented the fact that Peter and my real grandma had given two of the properties next door to my brother and me. Peter had never drunk anything but beer all his life and Billy turned him on to hard liquor, turned him into a drunk and he died from it. Billy sold the house to the Lyles and took off. Anyway, when I was between boats Janice Lyle put her 28 ft Harris pontoon boat up for sale and I snapped that up. It ran well for me for 10 years.
Last time I saw George Campbell was after the hurricane that ruined his camp. (Ed: This camp is the one on a peninsula at the end of Sachs Road that used to have a boat garage under it.) He was sitting on a rock with a case of ceramic tiles, skipping them out over the water. They are probably still out there if you need any.